Well, I know some people hate this, but I can't name the lake. I was invited by someone and promised not to share. Many of us have our special favorites and I always honor spots and lakes. Particularly spots or lakes that probably would not handle much pressure very well.
The rule is, when someone shows you a spot, you don't take anyone else there if you don't have permission. Since Bryan Plenzler was nice enough to invite me, and after seeing the lake, I understand the need. I was just along for the ride. Bryan did all the hard stuff. The actual lake really isn't that important considering we have 11,000 to choose from and bass do similar things in many of them.
We were fishing last weekend in that overcast to partly sunny weather with little to no breeze. Water temp was around 45 F. Chilly to the touch for sure. We fished from around 8 AM until mid-afternoon.
The pattern was simple. Fish off the main break on points and mid-depth flats around scattered weed patches crowded with bait - lots of small panfish.
Most of our fish came from around 13 to 22 feet of water. It looked like some bass were deeper, but a hot spot this day was a plain bar going from the shore break tapering 11 to 15 to 18+, though we caught bass in about 5 different areas.
I caught 4 nice keepers - all solid, fat fish and Bryan, who is a pretty darn good angler, managed to get 11 in the boat despite having 1 break off, and another just come unbuttoned. All bass landed were keepers with most not needing a measure. Lots of bass around 3 pounds.
About a 3rd of them came on the perennial cold water lure - the reliable blade bait - including the first and biggest bass of the day (see picture below). Bryan is pretty good with those things and used homemade ones like I do. I've been fishing them for a number of years now, but still am spotty with them. Actually the big one came when I just started to slowly reel the blade up off the bottom in about 20 feet of water. The rest came on Poor Boy Erie Darters on a jig head. I was using the larger size, larger head and line (10 pound P-Line HALO), while Bryan had the smaller size and dropped later in the day to a lighter head and 6 pound test line. He got most of the bites later.
It felt great to get the rod bent by some quality bass. They fought pretty well. You wouldn't have known it was 45 degree water with a few jumps and even some pretty hard hits though most were just there all of a sudden.
I have some simple video of a few of the bass to put up this week of Bryan in action, but he was nice enough to take my picture with my 2 best - a 4-11 and another about 3 1/2 pounds. Fat and healthy. (The bass)
(http://www.greatlakesbass.com/images/dantwobigfalllargemouthbass.jpg)
It was very fun and great company. Thanks Bryan! And thanks for showing and telling me about some of the new Humminbird features. I never get tired of learning about new things.
;D ;D When I first read the headline I thought you were in the Marble chain down at Coldwater.....I was going to say it has been along time since I have seen large stringers come from there...Shows you what preconcieved thinking does...
Nice fish...I think I recognize that tree in the background.... ;D
Hmmmm... would Dan Kimmel salt clues into his report for people to guess on...?? That is an interesting concept (paul is dead) to consider (I am the walrus)...
Actually, I do hear that a couple people who know what they are doing, apparently, put the hurtin' on some big bass there too (Coldwater, I mean)!
If you do recognize the tree... please PM me because he had me blindfolded the entire time until we were actually on the first spot!?! (koo koo ka choo)
Actually, Paul is not dead, but he did get kicked out of his club!
And thanks for fishing with me! I know we've talked about it for years and I'm glad we finally got out. That's one of those lakes that just doesn't get fished at all for bass after the summer--mainly just a few bluegill fisherman after that. In the 10 years I've been going there, I've never seen a bassboat, which is the best part since I hate fishing in crowds! In fact I don't even go there until November. Numbers aren't there, but the quality definitely is.
The truth is, there are lots of lakes in Michigan like that. I've tried quite a few. Some are really good, and some are really bad! You just need to get out and try different ones until you come across a good one.
Very nice!
I have a list of late season lakes I haven't even gotten to yet... I tried 2 of them before I went out with you. One I have tried before, many times, as late as early December and done decent. 1 dink. The other one I had only fished once before in the early fall. I couldn't even find a bass on that one... Oh well. We have to learn from the slow days too.
I was very tempted to call you again this past weekend ;D but I already had a plan and it was to stay home and get things done. So I did.
I've got to get a heated pole barn on my wish list...
You should have! I would've gone in a second!
I'll remember that. I'm usually a lot weaker in my resolve...